Flying Solo
by Oxymoronic Alliteration
Summary: Tim is left alone at the office looking over a recently closed case and things begin pointing to a different culprit. Written as a Hangman Prize for Enthusiastic Fish.
1. Chapter 1

Timothy sat at his desk, his face only by the soft glow of his small desk lamp, looking both perturbed and completely absorbed in whatever he was studying. The building was almost empty, but Tim hadn't noticed that he was one of the last agents still there. Gibbs, he knew, had gone home already and both Ducky and Abby were on their way out. The entire team had been in a celebratory mood that night as one of their bigger cases had just been closed.

"McGee," Ziva admonished as she re-entered the squad room. "Are you still here?"

"Just checking some things," he told her without looking up.

"McGoogle, we caught the guy. You don't need to pour over those e-mails anymore," Tony said. "Two days ago you said you never wanted to see them again."

"It doesn't make sense, Tony."

"What does not make sense?" Ziva asked as she packed up her things and readied herself to go home.

"Ah, McGee's just embarrassed because he was out-geeked by some high school drop out," Tony whispered to her, though he was making sure he was loud enough to be heard by Tim.

Tim frowned, not because of Tony's teasing, but because the comment was somewhat true. Tim couldn't understand how a man who had dropped out of high school his junior year with a 1.8 GPA had managed to keep him and the rest of his team running about on a wild goose chase.

It had started five days earlier when NCIS had received an anonymous e-mail. It detailed the murder of a female petty officer by the name Rachel Owens, including where they could find the body. It ended by telling them there would be more to come and challenging them to find.

"McGee, I want you to track this guy down!" Director Vance had ordered when the e-mail had turned out to be on the level.

And so McGee _had_ tracked the guy down. Well, he'd tracked down the WiFi coffee shop from where the e-mail had been sent. That had been the easy part; the hard part had been figuring out who, out of the twenty people who'd shown up on the security camera had sent the e-mail. Their troubles were only increased when they were told that the Wi-Fi extended to the outdoor tables and that the security cameras were only located inside the coffee shop.

"I'm sorry, boss," Tim had said, momentarily abandoning the "do not apologize" rule. "Abby's working on the footage, but our chances at this point are slim."

With each day came another e-mail and another body. No matter how quickly Tim worked to trace each e-mail, they always found themselves arriving a bit too late. The pulled security videos they were able to get – not all of the WiFi spots were even able to give them that much – were watched ad nauseum for the chance that even one face would pop up twice. There was no way NCIS could possibly set up surveillance in every area that offered WiFi service, so all they could do was try to anticipate. Tim had grown increasingly frustrated by his inability to catch this guy. With each new e-mail, he'd gotten the sinking feeling that the sender was taunting him specifically.

"McGee, Paulson is the guy," Tony insisted, pulling Tim's attention away from the e-mails. He'd printed them all out and had placed them out, side by side, on his desk. "He admitted that he'd accosted Rachel Owens," Tony reminded, referring to the first victim.

"Tony, the guy is unhinged, sure, but that doesn't make him guilty. I don't think he could facilitate this kind of elaborate scheme. He works at a gas station and, from what I've seen, can barely even work the register."

"Yes, McGee, and we found, based on the victims' credit card receipts, that all five of them had stopped by the gas station in the last week."

"So? It's the gas station closest to the base, so it's not so strange that all of the victims had stopped there at some point."

"McGee, we found his fingerprints in Ethan Smith's car," Ziva put in.

"He could have helped P.O. Smith put something in his car recently."

"The rope found in his shed matches the marks made from the rope used to strangle the victims."

"I'm sure that applies to hundreds of people."

"McGee, we know that the guy tried to pick up P.O. Owens and she rejected him. He's acting out his revenge."

"So why aren't all of the victims women? Why would he be sending us e-mails, letting us know about the murders?"

"He was playing with our minds, McGeek," Tony told him. "Lots of killers like to taunt the officials that are trying to catch them."

"It just doesn't make sense, Tony!"

"Not all murderers make sense." Tony grabbed his bag and threw it over his shoulder. "Look, Probie, if you want to stay in on the first night off we've had in a week, that's your business, but I hope you don't think less of me if I choose to spend my night a bit differently."

Tim didn't respond, instead giving Tony and Ziva a distracted wave, telling them he was fine and that they needn't feel any obligation to stay behind with him. They both bade him good night as they walked to the elevator and Tim robotically responded with his own good-bye. His mind, though, was on the e-mails in front of him. There was something there that he wasn't seeing and it was driving him nuts.


	2. Chapter 2

Rachel Owens  
Nicole Cassel  
Harvey Alt  
Raymond Lormen  
Ethan Smith

Tim had the names of the five victims written out before him. He slowly scanned his eyes down the list. Every so often he'd think he saw something, but it would disappear an instant later. He'd been doing brain teasers and cryptic crossword puzzles since his childhood and he knew there was something here that he just wasn't seeing…but he didn't know what.

He groaned, rubbing his temples. It was nearly 11:30pm and he was beginning to grow weary. As he stretched his arms above his head, leaning his body back in his chair, he considered going home for the night and working on this again tomorrow. Nothing was going to change between then and now, and his tired state may be clouding his brain at the moment. A good night's sleep could be just what he needed.

He glanced back down at the notepad with the names of the victims and stopped short. His arms were still stretched above his head, and he slowly lowered them, not wanting to lose what he saw…or what he thought he saw.

"It couldn't be…" he mumbled as his eyes scanned through the names. "Could it?" Tim grabbed a pen and began writing out the names anew, this time using one line:

Rachel Owens Nicole Cassel Harvey Alt Raymond Lormen Ethan Smith

His eyes widened, and he rewrote the names, leaving no spaces between them:

RachelOwensNicoleCasselHarveyAltRaymondLormenEthanSmith

**R**achel**O**wens**N**icole**C**assel**H**arvey**A**lt**R**aymond**L**ormen**E**than**S**mith

**R O N C H A R L E S**

Ron Charles. The name was not unknown to Tim. Ron Charles had been another student at MIT. Like Tim, Ron had been a couple of grades ahead of his peers in school and had remarkable computer science abilities. Unlike Tim, Ron had been cocky and arrogant, always using his intelligence and computer proficiency to show off. Ron had written a program into the administrative database that would send one hundred dollars per month to an account he'd set up for a fake department. No one had noticed it and he'd managed to continue it for almost four years.

By that time, Tim was in his junior year and had gotten an on-campus job working in the administration office. It was a menial job and his duties mostly consisted of getting coffee and answering phones, but he was also called upon to file papers. As he had been filing the latest budget report, he'd noticed that money being sent to a department he had never heard of. Tim had brought it to the attention of his immediate superior and the next day Charles was brought in for embezzlement. Tim hadn't paid much attention to the case, though he knew Charles had done some jail time. The fact was, he hadn't thought about Ron Charles since that year.

Tim looked back down at the paper. Could it be a coincidence? Sure, Gibbs didn't believe in them, but coincidences did happen now and then. Tim shook his head. Through out the investigation he'd felt like he was specifically being taunted by this guy, and now it seemed he'd had good reason to think so. But what could this possibly mean? There had to be more to it that he wasn't seeing. He thought about calling the team, but he had a feeling they would tell him he was reading too much into this and too simply let it go.

He pulled the e-mails out and placed them on his desk. The content was simple. He described the murder, told them where they'd find the body, and insinuated that there were more to come. They weren't cryptic as far as he could tell. Even the username, navykiller, didn't seem to have any hidden meaning. The only things left were the time stamps on the e-mails. Tim circled the time at which each e-mail had been sent and wrote them out.

3:12pm  
4:20am  
3:23pm  
2:05pm

Now, if he were to match each number with its corresponding letter it would read CLDTCWBE. Tim frowned. That didn't make any sense. He looked over the times again and his eyes lit up again. "Of course! Military time!" he whispered, mentally kicking himself for not seeing it sooner. He wrote the times out again:

15:12  
04:20  
15:25  
14:05

Using the same process as before, it came out to read OLDTOWNE.

"Old town," he repeated, disregarding the added 'E' for the moment. What did it mean? Why was there an extra E? Charles – if he really was the one behind this – had been exact in everything else, so why allow and extra letter added on? Why not send it at 14:00? "Old Town East," he said. What was in the east area of Old Town? There was only one thing of note that Tim could think of. "The Potomac River." That had to be it. Still, he wasn't sure what it meant. Was there going to be another body there? Was he expected to go there?

Tim grabbed his phone and dialed Tony's number, praying the senior field agent would answer. He heard a click on the other end. "Here's Tony!" the older man answered doing a cheesy impression of Jack Nicholson in _The Shining_. "Just kidding. I actually can't come to the phone right now." Tim slumped down in his chair. "Leave a name and a number and I'll get back to you." A beep squealed in Tim's ear.

"Look, Tony, it's McGee. I think I've cracked something on this case and I need you to call me back as soon as you get this message." He ended the call and moved on to Ziva and Gibbs.

"Ziva David here. I am unavailable. Leave a message and I will try to return your call."

"This is Gibbs. Leave a message."

Tim clicked his phone shut after leaving messages on both Ziva's and Gibbs' phones, again telling them to call him as soon as they could. He looked back down at the e-mails, his fingers clicking against his desk. Should he go home and wait for them to call? Should he stay here and see what else he could figure out? Should he head down to Old Town and see what was waiting for him there? Tim frowned. He knew that wasn't the smartest idea, especially as it seemed he was the target for the killer. But suppose Charles was holding someone hostage and was only going to release the person if Tim showed up? Tim didn't want to find out tomorrow morning that his inaction had cost someone their life. "Stupid or not, I may just have to go it alone," he grumbled to himself.

He gave each of his team members another call before grabbing his own badge and gun. If this _was_ a trap – and at this point he had little doubt that it was – he was going to be as careful as possible.


	3. Chapter 3

Tim stepped out of the car and surveyed the area. The sky was clear with only the moon casting a ghostly glow upon the river. The only sound was that of the water lapping about. He didn't see another human being anywhere, but he didn't intend to let down his guard. He slowly walked forward, gun in hand. His gut was beginning to churn. He now had no doubt that all of the murders and e-mails had been leading up to this, to him being here.

He took a step forward and stopped short, squinting at something in the distance. It was hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like a body. It definitely wasn't moving.

Tim looked around him as he slowly made his way toward the form. His finger was still on the trigger of his gun and he felt his body shaking. His heart was pounding about within his ribcage and his mouth had begun to dry. He knew he was being watched, but he didn't know from where.

"Are you alright?" he called out as he asked the body. He could now see clearly that it was a female body dressed in a naval uniform. As he got closer, he saw a pool of blood forming beneath the body. He carefully reached down, grabbed the shoulder of the body, and turned her over.

"What?" he muttered to himself as he looked down at what looked to be a CPR dummy dressed in a naval uniform. He barely had time to think about this before he felt the butt of a gun hit his head. As he fell, a hand grabbed the gun from his limp hand.

Tim groaned, pushing himself off of the blood-soaked dummy. He reached a hand up behind his head and tenderly touched where he had been hit. A bump was already beginning to form. "Ron?" he asked without even looking behind him.

"Very good."

Tim shakily stood and turned around. He was now face to face with a man he hadn't seen in over ten years; a man he'd barely even known during his time at MIT. Ron Charles looked like a man with nothing but revenge on his mind. His eyes and his sneer were completely unsettling. Even more unsettling was the gun he held in his hand; a gun that was currently pointed at Tim's chest.

"Took you long enough," Ron said. "I thought you were supposed to be one of the smart ones."

"You've been planning this for a long time," Tim commented. "I must have really pissed you off."

"Yes, getting kicked out of college, losing my money, and doing time in jail generally pisses me off."

"So you just killed a bunch of people to get back at me."

"Can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs."

"They weren't eggs; they were people."

Ron shrugged nonchalantly. "It was easy enough, nonetheless. The hard part was finding a patsy to take the fall for me."

"And if I hadn't figured it out?" Tim asked.

"I knew you would. Despite my personal opinion of you, I know you're intelligent." Ron raised the gun so it was now aimed at Tim's head. "If you hadn't, though, I guess I would have had to do the deed in a much cruder manner."

"Why all the bells and whistles in the first place?"

"Come on, Timothy. What's the good in killing a federal agent if you can't show off a bit?"

Tim snorted despite seeing no humor in his current situation. "You just had to let everyone know how smart and clever you are, huh? If you kill me, though, no one else will notice."

"Recognition from others isn't that important, so long as _I_ know about what I did. Like that program I wrote. I didn't need anyone else to know it was there to be proud of it."

"Too bad I found out about it."

"Too bad for you." Ron cocked the gun and Tim tried not to wince at the sound. "Good-bye, Timothy McGee."

"Freeze!" Ziva yelled out as she popped out.

"Federal agents!" Tony announced.

"Drop the weapon!" Gibbs commanded.

Ron looked back and forth between Tim and the three NCIS agents who were currently pointing their weapons at him. His finger trembled against the trigger.

"I would not try it if I were you," Ziva hissed.

Ron looked at her with contempt in his eyes, but obligingly dropped the gun. As Gibbs ran forward to cuff Ron, Ziva scooped up both his gun as well as the gun he'd grabbed from Tim's hand and Tony checked on the younger agent. "You okay, kid?"

"Yeah," he assured Tony, "I am." He caught Ron's steely glare and Tim couldn't help but grin. "You didn't think I came alone, did you?" he asked the enraged man. Tim unbuttoned his shirt to show the bullet-proof vest he wore below it.

"I thought we were fine until he aimed at your head," Ziva commented.

"You were right, though," Tony said. "Had we shown up with you, he'd have probably run off before we could catch him."

"Still, it's a good thing you didn't try to come out here completely alone, McGee," Gibbs told him.

Tim laughed as he pressed a cold compress against the back of his head. "What do you think I am? Stupid or something?"

* * *

**The End!**


End file.
